Why early pregnancy persists among Bangladesh’s garment workers

Behind the celebrated success of Bangladesh’s garment industry and its reputation for empowering women lies a stark, often overlooked reality: widespread early pregnancy, unsafe abortions, and reproductive health neglect among young female workers

Shadique Mahbub Islam
04 October, 2025

Behind the glowing success stories of our ready-made garments industry and the tale of women empowerment lies a troubling truth in the narrow alleys of urban slums, where the limited access to healthcare, long working hours, and poor reproductive knowledge continue to push young female RMG workers into cycles of early pregnancy and unsafe abortion.

Nearly two-thirds of Bangladesh's female garment workers were married before turning 18, 65% became mothers in their teens, and 25% carried out abortions, found a new longitudinal study by the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b). With only 14% of factories offering family planning materials and most clinics operating during working hours, thousands of women are left to make life-altering decisions without information, support, or choice.

Continued: https://www.tbsnews.net/features/panorama/why-early-pregnancy-persists-among-bangladeshs-garment-workers-1252746

04.10.2025

Commentary

ARK Foundation

Dr Ruchira Tabassum Naved

Dr Rumana Huque

Farzana Sharmin

garment workers and abortion

International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research

Climate resilience can’t be achieved without addressing sexual and reproductive health and rights, new study shows

Applying an intersectional climate justice lens to understand climate crisis impacts on sexual and reproductive health and rights and identify local solutions: Qualitative findings from Khulna, Bangladesh

Aug 4, 2025
Published in Sage Journals

A qualitative study by Ipas Bangladesh reveals how extreme weather events (EWEs) caused by climate change worsen sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) outcomes for women and girls in coastal Bangladesh. The study shows that people’s experiences during climate crises vary. Factors like gender, age, marital status, religion, income level, and social background shape them. The study found that effects such as increased gender-based violence, unintended pregnancies, challenges with menstrual health, and difficulties in accessing health services vary widely based on these intersectional factors.

Continued: https://www.ipas.org/news/climate-resilience-srhr-study/

04.08.2025

Research

climate change and reproductive justice

Dr. Sayed Rubayet

Ipas Bangladesh

sexual and reproductive health and rights

Leicester researchers develop lifesaving kits for women in Asia at risk from post-abortion complications

7 March 2025

University of Leicester researchers are behind a drive to provide lifesaving kits for women in India and Bangladesh who are at risk from complications following unsafe abortions during disasters.

Unsafe abortion and post-abortion complications are a leading cause of women’s illness and death worldwide. In low-and middle-income countries like India and Bangladesh, the risk of illness and death is heightened due to healthcare instability, supply-chain disruptions and devastating extreme weather events – all of which are made worse by the rapid progression of climate change.

Continued: https://le.ac.uk/news/2025/march/leicester-lifesaving-abortion-kits-women-asia

07.03.2025

News

lifesaving kit for unsafe abortion

Nibedita Ray-Bennett

Reproductive Health Kit 8

Bangladesh – ‘Restricting access doesn’t stop abortion, increases risks’

The limitations on access not only contribute to unsafe practices but also reinforce the social stigma associated with abortion

Nurul Islam Hasib
05 Oct 2024

Bangladesh currently lacks a comprehensive abortion law, permitting the procedure only in circumstances aimed at saving a woman's life, as outlined in the Bangladesh Penal Code of 1860 (sections 312-316).

Instead, the government offers Menstrual Regulation (MR), a service included in the national family planning program since 1979. MR can be performed by trained midlevel providers within 10 weeks of a missed menstrual period and by a doctor within 12 weeks.

Continued: https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/360837/%E2%80%98restricting-access-doesn%E2%80%99t-stop-abortion

Right to abortion: Indian court legalizes, Bangladesh still restricts

Abortion in Bangladesh is punishable by different jail terms and fines

Nawaz Farhin Antara
September 29, 2022

The right to abortion for women of all ages has emerged as a bold demand around the world at various times. In this situation, it became a matter of awakening when unmarried women also got the right to abortion in India.

India's Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that a woman's right to abortion cannot be taken away considering her marital status. Unmarried women who become pregnant unintentionally will have the right to an abortion within 24 weeks.

Continued: https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2022/09/29/right-to-abortion-indian-court-legalizes-bangladesh-still-restricts

Bangladesh – SRHR information still lacking in rural areas

A shortage of health workers to disseminate SRHR information is the root cause of the lack of awareness among adolescents

Nawaz Farhin Antara
September 26, 2022

Adolescents in rural areas of Bangladesh are still resorting to unsafe means to terminate unwanted pregnancies as they do not have sufficient access to Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR) information, according to a recent report.

A shortage of health workers to disseminate SRHR information is the root cause of the lack of awareness among adolescents. Adolescent boys are particularly unaware as they find it difficult to speak to SRHR workers, who are predominantly women, it added.

Continued: https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2022/09/26/report-srhr-information-still-lacking-in-rural-areas

Bangladesh – RHSTEP attains massive progress towards keeping promise of improving SRHR situation

By Tithi R.Sarker
28 Dec 2021

The Reproductive Health Services Training and Education Program (RHSTEP) was evolved through a gradual government process for providing services to the womenfolk in their menstruation related health needs. The main objectives of foundation of RHSTEP also include addressing the sexual and reproductive health needs of both women and men, girls and boys.

In 1983 MRTSP (Menstrual Regulation Training and Services Program) was formed as a special project of the Government of Bangladesh to improve skills of service providers through training; establishing service points in public hospitals for Menstrual Regulation (MR) and its complications management.

Continued: https://bangladeshpost.net/posts/rhstep-attains-massive-progress-towards-keeping-promise-of-improving-srhr-situation-76121

28.12.2021

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menstrual regulation

Menstrual Regulation Training and Services Program

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Reproductive Health Services Training and Education Program

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Bangladesh – Ensuring Choices and Rights

The Daily Star in association with Team Associates and Marie Stopes Bangladesh organised an online discussion titled “World Population Day: Ensuring Choices and Rights” on July 8, 2021. Here we publish a summary of the discussion.

Wed Jul 28, 2021
Monjun Nahar, Lead, Advocacy and Communication, Marie Stopes Bangladesh

This year, the World Population Day focuses on comprehensive rights and choices on sexual and reproductive health. The theme itself refers to the global consensus that reproductive health rights are integral and indivisible parts of human rights. Particularly for women reproductive rights are deeply connected with their life and livelihood. The ability to take decisions about their sexual and reproductive health is a key indicator that women are in control of their own lives.

However, we are talking about rights and choices in a context where women have very little independence to take decision by herself. A woman's education, marriage, profession are mostly dependent on her family members.

Continued: https://www.thedailystar.net/round-tables/news/ensuring-choices-and-rights-2138396

Poor Access to Safe Abortions Is Killing South Asian Women

Even in countries where abortion is legal, access to safe abortions remains challenging

By Bansari Kamdar
June 15, 2021

One in every four maternal deaths around the world happens in South Asia. Lack of access to safe and legal abortions and contraceptives is a leading reason for the region’s high maternal mortality rate. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), less than half the abortions in South and Central Asia were safe.

In Bhutan, which has a 1.4 percent case fatality rate, one of the main reasons for maternal mortality is abortion complications. Section 146 of Bhutan’s Penal Code legalizes abortion only if it is to save the life of the woman, or if the pregnancy resulted from incest and rape or the mother is not of sound mental condition. Denied access to safe abortion, many Bhutanese women cross the border to neighboring India, where abortion, while legal on most grounds, remains dangerous.

Continued: https://thediplomat.com/2021/06/poor-access-to-safe-abortions-is-killing-south-asian-women/

Why Some Women Might Want ‘Missed-Period Pills’

Abortion drugs administered as early as 28 days after a woman’s last period can offer comfort in uncertainty to those who want it.

By Patrick Adams
Dec. 3, 2020

The pregnancy test is one of the most ubiquitous home health care products in America. What resembled a child’s chemistry set when it first arrived on the market in 1977 is now the widely available wand. Today, dozens of different devices promise to promptly deliver what any possibly-pregnant person is assumed to want: knowledge of her status.

Now a new study suggests that for all of the ease and convenience of the at-home test, a significant number of women would prefer not to know. Given the choice, they would opt instead to take two drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration to terminate a pregnancy. The first drug, mifepristone, blocks the effects of progesterone, a hormone without which the lining of the uterus begins to break down, while the second drug, misoprostol, induces contractions of the uterus that expel its contents.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/03/opinion/pregnancy-missed-period-pills.html